Background: Chronic limb ischemia can lead to high rates of limb loss and mortality. Open surgery is the gold standard for treatment of distal disease. Endovascular surgery should have less complications with similar outcomes.
Aim: To report a cohort of patients with distal arterial disease treated with endovascular surgery at our institution.
Material and methods: Review of angioplasty records of patients undergoing distal lower extremity endovascular procedures between 2016 and 2019. Demographics, comorbidities, form of presentation, type of intervention, perioperative complications, and length of stay were analyzed. The primary outcomes were wound healing, reinterventions and freedom from major amputation. Secondary outcomes were overall survival and amputation-free survival.
Results: Forty-eight limbs of 41 patients with a mean age 75 years (78% males) were treated. Ninety-three percent had hypertension, 88% diabetes, 30% chronic kidney disease. 73% presented with major wounds. Plain balloon and drug coated balloon angioplasties were carried out in 65 and 31% of procedures respectively, with no difference in results. In 46% of the cases, only chronic total occlusions were treated. Wound healing was achieved in 85% of procedures and 90% of patients were free from amputation at one year of follow up. Complications were observed in 18% of procedures, perioperative mortality was 2% and one-year survival was 76%.
Conclusions: Endovascular therapy achieves high rates of wound healing and freedom from amputation with low perioperative mortality and moderate complication rates.